If scientists get their way,
then soon viruses would be shaken to death.
The new study has shown
that laser pulses tuned to the right frequency can kill certain
viruses.

"The capsid of a virus is something like the shell of a
turtle. If the shell can be compromised [by mechanical vibrations], the virus
can be inactivated," physicist Sankey of Arizona State University has said.

Sankey and his student Eric Dykeman developed a way to calculate the
vibrational motion of every atom in a virus shell, so that they can determine
the lowest resonant frequencies.

All objects have resonant
frequencies at which they naturally oscillate but resonating can get out of
control but resonating can get out of control.

An experimental group
led by K. T. Tsen from Arizona State University have recently shown that pulses
of laser light can induce destructive vibrations in virus shells.

"The idea is that the time that the pulse is on is about a quarter
of a period of a vibration," Sankey said.

"Like pushing a child on a
swing from rest, one impulsive push gets the virus shaking."

It is
difficult to calculate what sort of push will kill a virus, since there can be
millions of atoms in its shell structure. A direct computation of each atom’s
movements would take several hundred thousand Gigabytes of computer memory,
Sankey added.

He and Dykeman have found a method to calculate the
resonant frequencies with much less memory.

The researchers believe
that these treatments would probably be safer for patients than many antiviral
drugs that can have terrible side-effects.

Via Times of India